Identifying partially schematic units in the code-mixing of an English and German speaking child

Abstract

Intra-sentential code-mixing presents a number of puzzles for theories of bilingualism. In this paper, we examine the code-mixed English-German utterances of a young English-German-Spanish trilingual child between 1;10 – 3;1, using both an extensive diary kept by the mother and audio recordings. We address the interplay between lexical and syntactic aspects of language use outlined in the usage-based approach (e.g. Tomasello, 2003). The data suggest that partially schematic constructions play an important role in the code-mixing of this child. In addition, we find, first, that the code-mixing was not mainly the result of lexical gaps. Second, there was more mixing of German function words than content words. Third, code-mixed utterances often consisted of the use of a partially schematic construction with the open slot filled by material from the other language. These results raise a number of important issues for all theoretical approaches to code mixing, which we discuss.

Slot-and-Frame Schemas in the Language of a Polish- and English-Speaking Child: The Impact of Usage Patterns on the Switch Placement

“…This invites our second research question about the extent to which productivity of a given pattern results in openness of that pattern to items from either language. We expect that partial productivity is only part of the explanation as some of the CS in category (c) occurs within the frozen constructional frames (Quick et al 2018). If our expectation is confirmed, we will examine child usage data for any further evidence which could help us to explain why CS occurs at certain points in the constructions.…”

“…All Sadie's monolingual and bilingual utterances, as recorded in the diary, were examined using what we call a 'diary Traceback method'. This method was adapted from that used to analyse densely sampled corpora of recorded speech and to trace constructions back to those recorded in prior videotaped interactions (Dąbrowska and Lieven 2005;Lieven et al 2009;Quick et al 2018). In our study, to verify whether piecemeal acquisition holds for our context of bilingual exposure, we first traced construction development throughout the diary recording period.…”

“…Since our video recording schedule typically involved only 3-4 recordings per month, our video recorded data were not sufficiently dense to lend themselves to exactly the same kind of analysis as that adopted by other researchers (Dąbrowska and Lieven 2005;Lieven et al 2009;Quick et al 2018). Instead, once the video recorded data had been transcribed on CHAT, they were traced back to the slot-and-frame patterns from the diary and then linked to them using FREQ and KWAL commands on CLAN.…”

“…To the best of our knowledge, only one bilingual study of slot-and-frame patterns exists: Quick et al (2018) report the constructing of language from both English and German input by a child called Tim recorded between the ages of 1;10-3;1. Using the 'Traceback' method (see below), the study arrives at a quantitative breakdown of all bilingual constructions produced in four logically possible types of constructions.…”

“…Of particular relevance to the qualitative nature of CS is also the observation that if the child's two languages display asymmetry in acquisition, with one language developing faster than the other, such asymmetry will determine the nature of words which are used in bilingual combinations. Dominance is likely to be of importance in mixing as most bilingual children are dominant in one of their two languages (Gathercole 2016;Paradis and Nicoladis 2007) and this shows in various measures, including amount of exposure to both languages (Unsworth 2015;Nicoladis et al 2018), the MLUs in both languages (e.g., Quick et al 2018), the number of TE equivalents available (Legacy et al 2016;Nicoladis et al 2018), parental reports and relative proportions of language used (Nicoladis et al 2018). By referring to the Matrix Frame Model of CS (Myers-Scotton and Jake 2001) which assumes a strict division between grammar and lexis, it has been argued that it is usually the child's 'dominant' language which provides the functional frame while the language used less frequently provides individual content words (Bernardini and Schlyter 2004;Cantone 2007;Gawlitzek-Maiwald and Tracy 1996;Petersen 1988) though more recent studies show that frames can sometimes be derived from the weaker language (Müller et al 2015).…”